Page 151 of The Midnight Knock

KYLA

Fernanda had plenty of practice with this sort of thing. Kyla could see, in an instant, how she’d survived so long at Frank O’Shea’s house. With just a handful of words, a gentle hand on the head, she had calmed Te’lo’hi. The awful noises of pain began to ease. The column of silver light stopped spreading. A few words more, and the light began to cool. To stabilize.

It was like watching a magic trick. A master at work.

“The little god realized that if he had friends, he could survive anything,” Fernanda said. “That he coulddoanything. That he would never be alone. He realized that with good people at his side, he could go on adventures forever through the stars.”

She stopped to smile. Te’lo’hi said cautiously,

what

what kind of adventures?

Fernanda looked back at Ethan and Kyla with the saddest smile Ethan had ever seen.

Kyla said, “Are you sure about this?”

Fernanda said, “I looked and I looked in the mirror, but there isn’t a future where my brother and I are safe together. I never found a world where we were both happy.”

“I see,” Kyla said.

Adeline patted Fernanda on the arm. “It’s okay.”

Ethan said simply, “Thank you.”

With a soft grin, Fernanda turned back to Te’lo’hi. “What adventures? Oh, mijo. We should go see for ourselves.”

A few feet away from Kyla, something shifted. Sarah Powers had stopped moving, Jack Allen’s knife still buried in her back. But above her, something odd began to rise—silver and diaphanous, like the vapor of a dream.

Kyla’s breath caught in her throat. That might just be Sarah’s soul.

Te’lo’hi saw it too. The god flicked a little hand up and over and around, conducting the invisible forces around them. The shimmering substance rose higher into the air before flying over the platform and plunging into the silver waves below. Beneath them, Kyla heard a metallic chime like a bell.

She said, “What did you just do?”

i sent her to another story

one where she could still convince

me and the old tribe

to help the people of this world

Kyla said, “And what about your people? The other beings like you, the ones you got separated from? Why can’t you go find them?”

they are

so far away

even with my power

it would be

a very long journey

Kyla looked from Adeline to Fernanda and back to Te’lo’hi. “Don’t be afraid. I think you’ll have some friends for the road.”

Ethan said, “You can’t keep putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you have to move forward. You have to face the facts. Time only goes one direction, even for you.”